Counties Manukau swimmer grabs gold at Oceania Championships

Counties Manukau swimmer Carsten Corazza scored New Zealand’s second gold medal at the FINA Oceania Championships in New Caledonia tonight (NZ time).

The 21 year old from the Howick Pakuranga club took out the men’s 400m individual medley outdoors at the Noumea Aquatic Centre.  

Corazza, coached by Gary Hollywood, the head coach of the New Zealand Oceania team, won in emphatic style, finishing more than four seconds clear of Australia’s Kenneth To with Dunedin’s Matthew Glassford third.  

He led a four-medal haul for New Zealand in the pool tonight to bring their tally to eight medals so far.  

The other medals tonight included a silver for Dunedin’s  Kurt Crosland in the 50m backstroke, just 18/100ths of a second behind Australian Ben Edmonds, reversing the result in the 100m freestyle won by the kiwi on the first night of pool action.

The quartet of Ewan Jackson, Corazza, Isaac Foote and Troy Balvert combined to pick up a medal in the 4x200m freestyle relay behind Australia.  

The championships continue until Sunday. 

Tonight’s results along with corrected results from the first night are:  

Day 3 NZ finals:  

Men 400m individual medley: Carsten Corazza (NZL) 4:26.02, 1; Kenneth To (AUS) 4:30.35, 2; Matthew Glassford (NZL) 4:36.55, 3.  

Men 50m backstroke: Ben Edmonds (AUS) 26.54, 1; Kurt Crosland (NZL) 26.72, 2; Ryan Pini (PNG) 26.95, 3.  

Men 100m freestyle: To 50.08, 1; Pini 51.28, 2; Daniel Lester (AUS) 51.53, 3. Also: Cameron Simpson (NZL) 52.35, 4; Crosland 53.35, 5.  

Men 100m breaststroke: Thomas Dahlia (FRA) 1:03.27, 1; Nicholas Schafer (AUS) 1:03.29, 2; Nikolas Pregelj (AUS) 1:04.02, 3. Also: Glassford 1:05.46, 4.  

Men 4x200m freestyle relay: Australia 7:34,76, 1; New Zealand (Ewan Jackson 1:54.57, Corazza 1:53.34, Isaac Foote 1:57.90, Troy Balvert 1:59.36) 7:45.37, 2; France 8:00.47, 3.  

Day 2 NZ finals:  

Men 50m butterfly: Pini 24.41, 1; Daniel Lester (AUS) 24.45, 2; Amini Fonua (TON) 24.93, 3. Also: Cameron Simpson (NZL) 25.47, 6.  

Men 200m freestyle: Kenneth To (AUS) 1:50.32, 1; Thomas Dahlia (FRA) 1:54.76, 2; Ewan Jackson (NZL) 1:55.70, 3. Also: Matthew Glassford (NZL) 1:57.96, 6  

Men 100m backstroke: Kurt Crosland (NZL) 56.52, 1; Ben Edmonds (AUS) 57.15, 2; Pini 58.43, 3. Also: Ben Gillies (NZL) 59.77, 4.  

Men 1500m freestyle: Jarrod Poort (AUS) 15:30.68, 1;Trent Grimsey (AUS) 15:32.39, 2; Isaac Foote (NZL) 16:01.21, 3. Also Troy Balvert (NZL) 16:18.37, 4.